


Spy-der Woman: To Know Her

by msmchugh96



Series: Spy-der Woman: To Know Her [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Spider-Woman (Comic), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23218846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmchugh96/pseuds/msmchugh96
Summary: A young woman, Jessica, is captured by a mysterious group of government officials and is forced to recount her involvement in one of the most devastating events in Japan's modern history.
Relationships: Jessica Drew/Gwen Stacy
Series: Spy-der Woman: To Know Her [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1669351
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. A Black Ink Face

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Hi! Thank you for taking the time to read my personal spin on the Spider-Woman origin story. Enjoy!

Tokyo, Japan

The colors were still there: the reds, the blues, pinks, and purples. They just weren’t as bright anymore. The ashes of the most devastating event in Japan’s modern history still carried in the wind dulling any glow that the city once had. If anything, the black of Tokyo: skyline, alleyways, suits of men and women were just as deep and dark as ever.

And in that black, a group of young boys played kickball in their light-up Sketchers. Haruto Yamamoto, age seven, teased little Akihiro Nakamura, age six, as he stepped up to the makeshift cardboard plate. Akihiro was the runt of the group, and it didn’t help that his sneakers were too old to light up blue anymore like the rest of the boys. Haruto had no rhyme or reason to be this mean other than he was a boy, and he could. Akihiro, along with the rest of the gang, just begged him to throw the ball already. 

But, before Haruto could finally pitch the ball, a warning siren rang throughout the city. The boys looked up at the screens on the sides of the buildings surrounding them as they changed from advertisements to a black screen followed by the logo of Tokyo’s five o’clock news. Yellow text appeared warning that the footage that is about to play may upset children and elderly viewers. 

The boys continued to look.

Helicopter shots along with cell phone camera footage were spliced together to show all different angles of devastation that occurred at the Port of Tokyo. The broadcast didn’t linger long on these images before cutting to a live feed of reporter, Mitsuko Miyazaki, who stood a few yards away from the seaport. All of it had been leveled out. 

“Good evening, this Mitsuko Miyazaki reporting live for Action News 10. 

Prime Minister Kenuichio Harada has asked me to speak to you this evening in regards to what is potentially now being deemed a terrorist attack.

It has been one week since the catastrophic explosion that occurred at Tokyo Harbour. As you can see behind me, search and rescue teams are still looking for survivors. However, hope is dwindling as the death toll continues to rise. By the end of the week, numbers are expected to double, potentially triple. 

With that being said, government authorities have been working day in and day out interviewing survivors of this attack. With the diligent work of the government, two crucial pieces of information have come to light. I urge you to pay attention carefully. 

One, the cause of the explosion came deep within the underground and not from an outside source, as initially reported. Also, while initially thought to be a chemical explosion, experts are now leaning towards this being an electrical explosion instead. 

Two, multiple eye witness reports mention a young woman helping survivors out of the wreckage, but then leaving the scene as rescue teams and authorities started to arrive. This woman has been described as being American or European, tall, black hair, with burn wounds covering her hands, arms, and chest. Gathering as much information as possible, the police have drawn up a potential sketch of what this person may look like.”

A black ink face covered the city. 

“If you have any information about the explosion or about the woman. Please give a call to the number appearing on the screen now. Do not hesitate to call. Any and all information, big or small, could prove helpful in aiding this investigation. 

If you know something, say something.

Thank you for your time, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you have a peaceful rest of your evening.”

Little Akihiro, frightened by the images he saw, had broken away his gaze midway through the broadcast. In contrast, the rest of the boys, with eyes glazed over, had continued to watch. 

Desperately wanting to be in the comfort of his mother’s arms, Akihiro snuck off from the boys. He was only able to make it a few feet away before an unmarked car had pulled into the black. The headlights on the vehicle were so bright that Akihiro tripped over his own feet, falling into a puddle. This caught the attention of the other boys whose voices fell short of laughter when they saw a group of men exit the vehicle with guns visibly strapped to their sides. 

All of the boys, now just as little as Akihiro, ran off in the other direction. Hamurato ran slightly behind and kept his head turned to look at the men. He watched as the last one out of the vehicle pulled a woman out along with him. The man kept his gun close to her head. Akihiro was frozen. 

She was barely dressed, only wearing dirty white underwear and an oversized red and black motorcycle jacket. A large black box that hummed with a blue glow encased her hands, leaving her hunched over. The woman tried to walk on her own, but her knees started to buckle underneath her. The group of men shouted remarks that Aikhiro had only ever heard his father use underneath his breath. The woman took a few steps into the street light, exposing deep purple scars on her legs running from her ankles up to her hips. The tallest man shouted at her to stand up straight. He took a decent amount of her hair into his and yanked her head up, exposing her face underneath the street light. 

It was her. The woman Akihiro had only seen moments ago on every screen in Tokyo. Her eyes locked with his, and he felt his heart drop into his stomach. She looked like a ghost. One of those urban legends the boys would talk about after school to scare him like the one about the woman who had a smile cut from ear to ear. 

The men dragged her into a run-down building, while Akihiro, soaked and silent, got up and began to walk his way out of the black.

***

The building used to be a butcher shop. The walls, floors, even the air was stained with rancid blood. The men pulled her far into the back of what used to be a cooler. Meat hooks swinging back and forth, nipping at her exposed skin. The tall man, leading the pack, opened up a door in the back and instructed everyone to move quickly while he made sure that no one had followed them in. Once the coast was clear and the door closed behind them, all in unison they began to move forward, left foot first. The only source of light coming from flickering lights that were placed where the ceiling meets the wall. None of them spoke.

As they made their way down the hall, the hair left on the woman’s arms stood up straight. She felt nauseated and unable to keep her focus. While only four men surrounded her, she could see eight. Along with the gun firmly placed against her spine, she could feel the blood rushing through her body. Every single cell of her being trying to repair itself into some semblance of what it used to be. Exhausting the last bits of energy she had left. The smell of sulfur that came from the water dripping from the ceiling was strong enough that she could taste it on the tip of her tongue. But, worst of all, was the sound of the rats. The rats with their little claws scratched at the concrete surrounding them. 

The group came to a halt when they had reached a new door. The tall man made his way to the front and knocked on the door with a particular rhythm. The door creaked open, there were whispers, followed by laughter. A deep feminine laughter. 

“Come in. We have been waiting patiently.” 

The new room they entered was filled with old TVs, all of them turned to various news stations and presidential addresses/condolences regarding the “terrorist attack” in Tokyo. The woman kept her eyes trained on the screens taking in as much information as she could understand, even as the men shoved her onto an illuminated platform in the middle of the room. Before she could get the chance to stand tall on her own, a magnetic pull between the platform and the box encasing her hands forced her down onto her knees. 

She didn’t make a sound.

The woman that had opened the door slipped a remote into her pocket and approached the girl. “We only do this out of precaution. Not to harm you.” She took the girl’s chin into her palm and inspected every mark that marred her face. “Beautiful thing you are.” The woman looked up at the group of men, “Bring everyone else here now.”

The group of men dispersed, and for a brief moment, the two women were alone. 

“You have done a lot of damage.”

“I did what I had to do.” The girl finally spoke.

“And the whole world heard you loud and clear.”

“Should I say sorry?”

“Sorry? Nothing to apologize for. It is all apart of the process.”

The men returned with several individuals dressed in suits and ties. Everyone took their respective seat at a makeshift table. The woman let go of the girl’s face to greet the people in the room with a firm handshake, except for the last man to which she bowed. 

“Thank you for joining us, Prime Minister.”

“And thank you, Madame, for the work you have done.”

“It’s my honor.”

“So this is the girl.” the Prime Minister was the last to take his seat. 

Madame continued to stand with one hand on the table and the other hand in her pocket firmly holding the remote control. 

“Girl? Given our base-level knowledge, she is far more than that. Aren’t you?”

The girl only gave a small glance up at the Madame before looking back down. 

“This girl from what we understand is the cause for this little incident. Aren’t you?”

The girl remained silent.

“Killing thousands, mass mourning, even pulled a few of New York’s finest over here to help the remaining survivors. All done by you and only you.”

“It wasn’t just me.” she spoke through her teeth.

“It wasn’t? Well, let’s write that down because we have no clue. In fact, for the first time in a long time, there is a lot of stuff we don’t know. Which is why this evening, you are going to tell us everything, every detail, on what happened last week and everything before it. We want the who, what, when, where, why, and how. And before you try and refuse, please remember how we found you—near death against a dumpster—which means that-”

“My name is Jessica.”

“Jessica? Last name.”

“No last name.”

“Why is that, Jessica.”

“I was told I was lucky enough to even get a name at all.”

“Interesting. Well, luck implies probability, which means there were others like you, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t we start your story there.”

Jessica gnawed at the inside of her cheek till she could feel blood trickle down her throat.


	2. Amazing Spider-Like Abilities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica starts her story and explains how she got her name.

My name is Jessica, but before that, I was 0277. Four numbers stitched onto a blue gown underneath my collarbone. Right side. Black thread. The first thing I remember is myself—seeing myself. I was smaller then. My face has always been the same, though. 

I woke up in a white room. Walls, ceiling, the floor bright white, except for the wall in front of me, was just a large mirror. It felt like I had been sleeping forever, yet I was too tired to sit myself up. I probably couldn’t even if I wanted. I had all these wires that were connected to a machine   
that stood a few feet above me poking in and out of my skin. If I tried to move in the slightest I could feel the wires dig into my bones. Pretty uncomfortable. Laying as still as possible was my only real option for the first few days—or maybe it was weeks. I don’t really know. Time doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Everything moved so fast back then compared to now.

As you already guessed, there were other girls in the room. Same blue gowns, just different numbers. And they didn’t have machines or wires either. There were ten of us, including myself. We all looked alike for the most part. There were little things like 0298’s hair didn’t grow as long, or 0914 had these almost black-brown eyes. Just small things that would eventually become more significant differences later on, however, I am getting ahead of myself. 

They must have been placed in the room before me or woke up before me, or whatever I don’t know, they were all talking and playing with each other by the time I came to. The girls even had their own separate smaller groups that they would break off to when it came time to eat and sleep. During quiet hours, they would whisper about me in their little groups. I don’t think they knew I could hear every word they were saying as if they were sitting next to me. They weren’t scared of me or anything—they just thought I was “broken.” This was fair because I didn’t say anything when they spoke to me, barely flinched when they kicked me. The nurses who would come into the room to take care of us didn’t answer any questions about me. Eventually, the girls got bored and moved on. 

When I got older, I would be told that one of my strongest abilities is my acute sense of awareness. Not just of the world around me, but also of myself. I knew this to be true even though I didn’t have the words for it back then. Deep down, I could tell that I wasn’t like the other girls in the room because if they felt the things that I felt—they would be just as fucking scared as I was. 

How do I explain it to you?

Two things.

Two major things.

First. 

There was this one time during quiet hours, all the girls were asleep. It was completely silent. No whispering. No nothing. Not a single sound. Despite how exhausted I always felt, I never slept. It was just me and my reflection in the dark. I just stared blankly at myself because I didn’t really know how to have thoughts yet. 

I remember all I did was close my eyes for just a second, and when I opened them back up, someone else was staring back at me. I couldn’t see them. I could feel them. It was terrifying because it was just me in the mirror. The longer I looked though, all the little hairs on my arms began to stand straight up.

Have you ever felt that feeling before? Like you thought you were all alone minding your own business with not a single thought in your head. Then for whatever reason or hell, no reason at all, you feel like someone is watching you. You don’t see anyone. How come you feel so uneasy? And cold? You probably just push it to the back of your mind and carry on with whatever you are doing, right? Because what else are you going to do? You know you are all alone. Right? 

I kept closing my eyes, hoping when I opened them back up, I wouldn’t feel the person staring back at me. Yet, every time I opened them, I could feel more eyes. 

When the lights came back on again, and all the other girls woke up, I waited. I waited patiently for any of them to feel what I saw. Nothing. They ate breakfast, got washed up by the nurses, put on new blue gowns, started kicking around a ball during playtime—nothing. None of them. I mean, I thought maybe 0414 at one point felt the eyes. The ball they were playing with rolled over to the mirror, and she went to go grab it. As she picked it up for just a second, only a second, she paused. I held my breath. The hair on her arms didn’t stand up straight like mine did. She went back to playing. None of those girls ever noticed. 

I wanted to tell them. I just couldn’t speak. However, if I could go back to that moment, I still don't think I would have said anything. ‘Cause what happened next, after that day, I discovered the eyes—it just—it just all happened at once it seemed like. 

Everything just moved too fast. 

Second thing. 

0914 was the first one to show off, and I quote, “amazing spider-like abilities.” Just using her fingertips, she could climb the walls and even hang upside down on the ceiling. Then after that, every time the girls fell asleep, one of them would wake up and be able to do something “amazing.” 0414 could lift two of the other girls right over her head with ease. 0298 could shoot this sticky web out of her wrists that let her swing across the room. It was at this point the nurses stopped coming in just to feed us and clean us, they were in and out of there regularly with clipboards, tape recorders, cameras. Nothing, not even a single breath, went undocumented. 

And me? Still in the same spot. Still scared. Still tired. Nothing amazing.

Well, nothing amazing outwardly. 

Kinda like feeling past the mirror, I was able to feel past my exhaustion at this point. I broke the barrier, however you wanna put it. It isn't going to make any sense when I say it to you, just try your best to keep up. 

I could feel this endless emptiness inside of me. I was sinking further and further into myself—into that darkness. All I could hear was every breath, every beat, every blood cells flowing in and out of my fingers and toes. But I couldn’t see anything inside of me. For a minute there, I thought I was hollow. Just an echo chamber of sounds. You know how terrifying that is for a kid? I remember my whole body just locked up about it. The nurses couldn’t feed me or even get me to drink a glass of water. I also got to the point where I couldn’t breathe on my own. They had to stick two tubes up my nose to keep me breathing while I just kept sinking.

Despite what I thought at the time and to my relief, you can’t sink forever. I guess I had fallen far enough to find it—this glowing green ball of light inside of me. And I could feel how hungry it was. It wanted every part of me. And for the most part it had every part of me, except my thoughts. I could tell how badly it wanted to come out to the surface. There was a word I learned once—fuck what was it—it was—it was—um—destructive. It was destructive. I had to actively tell myself that no, no, you can’t let this thing out. It is a bad thing. If you let this thing out bad things will happen. I never wanted to hurt anyone, yet I knew I could if I didn’t focus. 

I know that sounds like an awful problem for a little kid to deal with, and it was. That being said, I was the lucky one. 

As I was sinking, 0298 was the first one to die. She had wrapped herself up in a cocoon from her own web. On accident or on purpose, I don’t know. When the nurses finally got to her and cracked her open she had suffocated herself. 1180 had these eyeballs that started growing all over her body. Face, arms, chest, everywhere. Any movement she made they would pop open, all she could do was scream. She died of infection within days. 0414’s muscles wouldn’t stop getting bigger. Just too big for her little body. You ever hear skin rip open before? One by one, a little girl was gone by the time the lights came back on. I remember I kept waiting for my turn. I kept waiting for the moment for me to slip up, to take one breath, and that green ball would rip me open too. 

Never did.

Eventually, all the screaming stopped leaving me the only one left. Well, there was 0774 who could have been still alive if the nurses hadn’t put her out of her misery. Which was for the better, I think, because the body only has a certain amount of room for a certain amount of arms. 

But yeah, that's how I got my name. I was the only one left. 

Two men came into the room after they put down 0774. This was when I met Dr. Lee and Dr.Wolfman for the first time. Dr. Lee was the older of the two, somewhere around the age of 60, and Dr.Wolfman was probably in his late 30s/ early 40s. I remember Dr. Wolfman picked me up off the ground and held me in his arms. He brushed the hair out of my face and gave me a look that seemed like he had known me my whole short life. To be honest, I felt the same just in a bad way. But, really, what was I gonna do? I was just a scared kid, and he was the one who gave me my name.

“Jessica,” Dr.Wolfman whispered as Dr.Lee pressed a needle into my thigh. 

The last thing I remember is putting my hand on Dr.Wolfman’s cheek and a small, flash green light before everything went black.

Best sleep I ever had.


End file.
